


Sorrow Fills the Silence

by liginamite



Series: With Arms Unbound: Once Upon A Bingo Challenge [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Pre-Relationship, Red Cricket - Freeform, Spoilers, The Cricket Game, episode coda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-08
Updated: 2013-01-08
Packaged: 2017-11-24 05:16:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/630839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liginamite/pseuds/liginamite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a stifling silence that surrounds the town, and Ruby knows precisely why. 2x10 Coda. Spoilers!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sorrow Fills the Silence

**Author's Note:**

> Oh man, more phonefic which I fear accounts for how short these are, but I can't resist. What a good ship. Written for my Once Upon a Bingo card, the subject being "silence." Title comes from a Decemberists song. 
> 
> Disclaimer: Don't own it!

It's odd, when Ruby gently pushes the door open. Despite the clear knowledge of what had happened earlier in the day, she had still knocked on the dark wooden door, her hand raised hesitantly for a moment before making contact. 

It's odd, because no one answers on the other side.

Ruby knew that what she was doing was a bad move from the moment her mind conceived the idea, but that didn't make it any less potent the more it grew. She had been sitting on the same bench Emma had sat with Henry on, her legs crossed at the ankle and hands absentmindedly twisting Pongo's leash as the dog laid beside the bench, his head down on his paws, when it had bloomed. Because surely she would have to go back to the office and get Pongo's dog bed, his food and water bowls, if she were to watch him. Right?

(And in her mind she thinks to herself that this isn't a temporary job. Emma had asked her, a hand on her shoulder and eyes set hard, if she would take Pongo in. Marco, though he loved the dog, could not keep up with his daily needs, and there was no one else quite as willing to adopt a newly homeless dog, no matter the consequences. Pongo is hers now, she supposes, but he will always be Archie's.)

"Hello?"

Who Ruby is expecting to answer she can't begin to say, but there's no response and she gingerly steps inside, door clicking shut behind her. Pongo whines and trots over to his dog bed, flopping down with all of the despair Ruby can still feel bubbling in her stomach. The sight of the office makes her breath catch oddly as she looks around. Everything is neat and tidied, curtains drawn and glass pitcher of water still offering a moment of distraction between truths and tears. Archie's chair is still pushed against his desk, and she touches it with the tips of her fingers. 

Ruby hasn't been here many times. Once, for the first time, after Granny had her heart attack. Ruby had shown up ruffled and choking back tears, clutching at her scarf and asking weakly if Archie was busy. 

Most had come to her offering condolences, hugs, an awkward pat on the shoulder. Archie had stared at her for a moment, eyes wide, taking in her stricken appearance, and he'd moved aside without a word, arm beckoning her inside. She had all but flopped onto the couch and tried to pull herself back together again, ashamed of how quickly she'd fallen apart, but Archie had just poured her some water, handed her the glass, and said without hesitation, "just talk when you're ready."

There had been a soft silence, pleasant in other circumstances, but painful then. Ruby sipped at the water carefully, staring at the smears of black across the back of her hand from her shoddy attempt at wiping away her tear-streaked make-up. Archie made silence comfortable, somehow, his soft eyes watching her with a gentle observation that felt...kind, rather than pitying, and finally she began to speak. 

It was more of a flood than anything, when the dam finally broke. She talked of her grandmother, of her parents dead and gone, how she had been planning to leave Storybrooke the following day, she talked about how had she left just a day earlier her grandmother would have been alone when the heart attack struck. Tears slipped unbidden into her water as she huddled over it, pelting the doctor with her own self-doubt and guilt and loneliness, things she had never let anyone else see, and he took it without a word, waiting until she was done before offering his advice. He was quiet and gentle, going so far as to take his glasses off and place them on the table so they could be eye to eye. 

"Whatever might have happened to your grandmother if you left wouldn't have been your fault, Ruby," he'd said, and the almost hoarse tone of his voice had been comfortable. Not velvet as books might describe, but rather like soft felt. "Things are out of our hands sometimes. It's okay to feel scared and alone in this situation, I know I would be, but the one thing to remember is that you should never, ever feel that this is your fault."

And what had probably been a change from his usual methods, he'd reached out and put his hand over hers, warm and heavy and a grounding point. He smiled at her, shaking her own hands gently with his and he said, "you're going to get there eventually, Ruby. However long it takes, you'll find a way to get what you want. You're a strong woman."

Pongo whines.

Ruby sits slowly down onto the couch, staring at the empty chair in front of her, and absently she picks up one of the glasses on the table, standing like silent soldiers around the pitcher. They're identical, spotless and there's no conceivable way she would be able to tell which one was the one he had offered her so long ago. She cannot recall what night it had been, and with the knowledge she has now as Red, she wonders whether the conversation has even happened. 

It feels real, and that's enough for her. Tentatively, she touches her lips to the glass and closes her eyes. 

The quiet that night had been pleasant. This is wrong. The silence is stifling and persistent. No one is twisting an office chair as they scribble notes on a file, there is no one clinking the pitcher against a glass, no one to clear their throat and gather thoughts before voicing them carefully. Pongo scuffs his claws against the carpet with a weak scrape of nails on fabric and Ruby opens her eyes again, swallowing with difficulty. 

Swiftly she gets up and gathers the navy bowls resting by the refrigerator in the kitchen, emptying the water into the sink. Archie hadn't gotten a chance to feed Pongo dinner the night before, and there are only a few crumbs left. 

There's a list pinned to the fridge with a magnet, a to-do list with groceries scrawled on each line in the messy hand of a man who made a living writing. A picture of Pongo as a puppy, tongue flopping and tail blurred in mid-wag. Another of Archie and Marco, arms slung across each other's shoulders and grinning widely, and another of Archie and his loyal dog, candid as Pongo licked sloppily at his laughing owner's cheek. A magnet from Granny's. Under that, names and numbers of patients and friends. Hers is fourth. 

With sharp, agitated movements Ruby stuffs the bowls into the bag she had brought and grabs the larger one full of dog food, stalking back into the office. 

"C'mon, boy," she snaps, but there's no venom to it, barely even a command really, and Pongo rises with clear reluctance before trotting to the door sadly. Ruby runs a hand through her hair, fighting back the quivering that threatens to wrack each movement before she quickly returns to the kitchen, pulling the picture of Archie and Pongo off the fridge door and tucking it into her coat pocket. 

She takes a hold of Pongo's leash as she returns to the office, huffing away the tears stinging the corners of her eyes. He looks up at her with wide eyes, blinking at her in question, and she waves him off. 

"I bet you're hungry, huh, Pongo? Let's get you home, get some food in you."

The way he looks at her, she can almost hear the returning comment the dog would no doubt give her could he speak. 

_But this is my home._

With one last look at the office, Ruby closes the door behind her, and the silence from inside carries her all the way back to the inn. 

Granny doesn't say anything as Ruby sets about smoothing Pongo's dog bed out in their kitchen, setting his bowls on the ground and rubbing the dog's ears as he laps eagerly at the water, nor does she make a comment when Ruby pulls the photo out of her pocket and pins it to the cork board behind the counter. There is no note accompanying it, but customers the next morning, normally so cheery and talkative, stare at it solemnly, some tearfully, and rarely do any of them talk. When they do, it is to order, or to comment on the food. It is to softly murmur about the weather, or a carefully mumbled goodbye before whisking away into the crisp air. The silence is heavy in Storybrooke that day, and Ruby knows why. 

For the first time, there is no one to talk to.


End file.
